Friday, December 8, 2017

A Day in the Life of a 1L Student: November 1, 2017

5:40 a.m.: My alarm clock rings, and I hit snooze for the first time. When you’re in law school, you squeeze sleep out of every minute.

5:50 a.m.: My alarm clock rings a second time, and it’s time to get up and get the day started.

6:15 a.m.: I grab my breakfast, my books, and I’m out the door and headed for the train station. Today, I opt to take the metro into the city because a) Class gets out at 3:10 p.m., b) Afternoon traffic out of the city is awful, and c) It’s game 7 of the World Series so everyone is out on the roads trying to get around the city to cheer on the Dodgers. When I don’t take the metro, I hop into my Beetle and make the 1+ hour commute into Downtown LA listening to my favorite morning radio show.

7:45 a.m.: After two trains and a shuttle ride, I make it to campus. After dropping my books off in the Hall of the 70s, I head over to Sonia’s to pick up a coffee. Drinking coffee is like drinking water for law students especially as the semester nears its end.

8:20 a.m.: Civil Procedure class begins. It’s time to put away cell phones and laptops and crack open textbooks and laptops. You may ask why, and the reason is different professors have different classroom policies. For this particular class, our co-professors prefer an old-school, non-technology policy to eliminate any and all distractions.

8:20 a.m. – 11:55 a.m.: I have Civil Procedure and Property classes back to back on Wednesday mornings. Honestly, Wednesday is always the toughest day of the week due to my two toughest classes: Civil Procedure due to amount of detail in the subject matter, and Property due to the number of rules and exceptions in stating the title to property. But nonetheless, I take everyday as I get it and try my best to get the work done and try to understand the material.

12:00 – 1:00 p.m.: Lunch time! The best part about long days are club meetings. And the best part about club meetings is food (and of course, listening to and learning about today’s subject matter)! Today, the Entertainment and Sports Law Society is holding a panel with Loyola alumni who work in television. They discuss their experiences, the paths they took to achieve their goals, and advice they would give us, the next generation of Loyola lawyers. One of the coolest things about Loyola is the community of alumni who come back and try to put forward for the next generation.

1:10 – 2:00 p.m.: It’s back in the classroom for legal research. Today is our last legal research class for the semester. I can’t believe we started this class back in August, and now we’re done for 2017! Like most of this year, everything is just going by so quickly! Today, our professor lets us out early so we can complete our fall practicum at home. As you can probably guess, law students live for days like this. It means we can head home early and get an extra hour to rest or catch up on work.

2:00 p.m. - 3:20 p.m.: A shuttle and two rides, and I’m back in my hometown of Azusa.

3:30 p.m. – Until I go to bed (about 12:00 a.m.): When I get home, the rest of my day is split between doing homework and taking care of my dog. On a regular basis, I make sure to give myself personal time to stretch, take a break, and relax for a bit. Some days, this break time is spent at the gym. Other days, it’s spent watching makeup tutorials on YouTube or going on rides at Disneyland. Most often, it’s spent talking to my loved ones. Today, my break time is spent watching the Los Angeles Dodgers play in game 7 of the World Series. No matter what it is I do, I’ve learned the importance of finding balance between work and play.

So there you have it, that is a day in the life of the average 1L student. Until next time friends!